Lifestyle

Smart Gadgets For Healthy Living

Adding healthy elements to the home is much easier than you’d think. Sure, most of us associate “healthy” with water filtration and air purification, but it goes farther than that — and it’s frequently less complicated.

Talk about houseplants and the chances of getting a horrified scowl from whomever you’re talking to are high. Some of us are blessed with a terrace or rooftop and can waltz into any plant store in the flower market and pick up a lovely bushy thing and then leave it to itself outside. But not having outdoor space shouldn’t preclude having possibly the greatest of healthy living elements in your home. Plants are natural cleaners, they’re calming — a great option for those with animal allergies — and they’re aesthetically pleasing. Plus, opting for indoor herb gardens means fresh sage at your fingertips.

The horticulturally challenged can take comfort in Click and Grow Smart Gardens, for herbs and flowers that require minimal work. It’s the space programme to the rescue, as Click and Grow was inspired by NASA tech that was invented for small spaces with minimal resources. The keys are the nutrient-rich soil that maximises oxygen release and a power source to keep the indicator light working — which tells you when it’s time to add water, usually every three to six weeks. You’d have to be a black thumb to kill them.

So with the house smelling like fresh basil, the next step is lighting, something no working designer will brush off the importance of. Lighting is well known to set and affect moods. The right light (or lack thereof) is crucial to a good night’s sleep — in turn crucial to good health. With a connection to most smartphones and tablets, Hue by Philips puts mood lighting at your fingertips 24/7. Philips’ personal wireless lighting system can begin the day with gradual brightening set on a timer and later turn the lights either up gradually or on fully remotely when you’re heading home in the dark. Perhaps it’s a simple act of turning them on and off daily when you’re on vacation to fool strangers into believing you’re not away. One of Hue’s functions is a paint feature that uses a favourite photo — perhaps with some awesome light — to duplicate in the room. The Hue kits comes with LED bulbs able to display varying tones that screw into any lamp and a bridge that connects to your wireless router. After that it runs through an Android or Apple app.

Finally it’s time to see if any of this is working for you. Is all that deep sleep helping? Is the fresh food you make with fresh herbs helping? Most of us rate our health by how our clothes fit and how smooth our skin is, but there’s more to it than pounds and inches. If you’re concerned about the finer details, the Withings Smart Body Analyzer is a must-have for the bathroom. The scale to end all scales, the Body Analyzer measures heart rate, body composition and CO2 levels as well as standard mass and body fat ratio among other nuggets of information. Once again connected to the web through an app, Withings super scale is a necessary tool for those who are serious about living healthy.